In business, it makes sense to pay a lot of attention to the bottom line. Every time a potential customer sends you an e-mail or gives you a call, you have an opportunity to close a sale. However, always wearing the “salesperson hat” may not be the best way to sustain long-term profitability.

I recently had an experience with a locksmith that very much illustrates this point. I used this gentleman to re-key some of the locks in my house and everything seemed to be fine. However, a few weeks later, one of the locks failed to operate properly.

The key mechanism was fine, but the latch portion inexplicably got “stuck” in a certain position. This was not at all the fault of the locksmith. He offered to come over to fix or replace the lock, being very upfront about the charges that would be involved. When I told him that I’d rather just replace the lock myself, he didn’t try to continue pushing the sale.

Instead, he told me that when I went to the hardware store, I should be aware that locks aren’t all the same size, that I should make certain and specific measurements to know I’m getting the right size, and that locks have a specific grading system. He told me what I needed to know to buy the “right” lock, even if he wasn’t the one selling and installing it for me.

As a result, I still have his business card on my desk and I still have his name tucked away in my brain. The next time a friend, colleague, or acquaintance mentions that they need a locksmith, I know who to recommend. If this same locksmith was hard on the sale, I wouldn’t have as positive an impression of him and he would not receive any referrals from me. For his long-term success, his overall helpfulness trumps getting that single sale.

A thought occurred to me when I was having a casual conversation with a friend the other day. We were talking about different workplaces where there can be a considerable amount of shift work and how it can be a challenge for the person making up the schedule.

He or she has to make sure that there is the right combination of people working at any given time, given a defined pool of employees. At the same time, he or she has to juggle their availability requests and other concerns. Then, we thought of a solution that might work: Google Calendar.

This free resource allows any single account to create multiple calendars. From there, the additional calendars can then be individually shared with other Google users. Using this framework, the scheduler can have the “master” account with everyone’s calendar, inputting the different shifts and using the color-coding to organize the right mix of talent and skills.

On the flip side, the employees can also submit their availability requests through this. If they need July 3rd off, they can indicate as such in their own calendar. There’s lots of space for additional notes as necessary.

This kind of infrastructure is clearly not at all suitable for very large companies with very large numbers of employees, but relatively small businesses may find some value here. The automatic notifications of changes, the easy integration with smartphones, and the simple “sharing” aspect can all prove quite useful.

It’s a question that every potential small business owner asks him or herself before taking the plunge: should I quit my day job and focus entirely on the new enterprise or should I keep my regular job and run the new business on the side?

Naturally, there are pros and cons to either approach. On the one hand, quitting your day job means that there are no other “work-related” distractions as you get ready to launch and run your new venture. You can dedicate yourself full-time, which not only helps to legitimize it as a real business, but it also means that you can probably get started (and become profitable) more quickly.

On the other hand, many small businesses will take some time before they are able to generate a steady flow of income. That positive cash flow can be quite the challenge and having a “regular” job with a regular income stream can provide you with that much needed assurance and peace of mind until your business starts turning a consistent profit.

If your financial situation allows, it’s usually better to take the first option rather than the second one. It carries much greater risk, to be sure, but it can help you determine more quickly whether the new business is viable or not. With the latter, you may always be left with the “some day” mentality of when you should quit the day job and focus on the new business.

You may have heard the recent news about Taiwanese food products being pulled off the shelves around the world. These include bottled drinks, fruit preserves, and other food products, due to a scare regarding DEHP, a chemical that may be carcinogenic. This has certainly hurt Taiwanese exports, but how does this affect other businesses around the world too.

This is just one example, but it demonstrates a very common scenario for multinational corporations and companies that import products from around the world. When there is a public concern about a certain product that you sell, you may feel pressured to pull it from your shelves. This is for your customers, to be sure, but it can also have a negative impact on your relationship with the manufacturers and importers.

How do you balance these two priorities? On the one hand, you certainly don’t want to sell a product that may be tainted or otherwise dangerous in some way, but you also don’t want to cut ties with a supplier either. To help sustain certain levels of orders with these suppliers, you may ask about alternative products that they may also provide.

The exact same thing happens when news stories break with controversial working conditions, poor environmental responsibility, and other issues that may mar the reputation of any given company, supplier, or product. It is a very delicate situation and should be handled accordingly.

When you own a very small business, you might say that you are a solopreneur. You take on every role in the company. If you are a growing company, you might find yourself hiring more people to take on more roles. At the same time, you might be seeing how you can combine some of these roles so that you can be the most cost-effective.

One example of this is sales and marketing. While there are absolutely differences between these two departments, as the people who have these kinds of jobs will certainly attest, there are also many opportunities for synergy between them.

What does the marketing department do? It takes care of all the advertising and all the other promotional dealings for the company. Why? The ultimate end goal is to increase sales. what does the sales department do? It sells the product. And how can it do better? Some great marketing and promotion can’t hurt, right?

Marketing to your potential customers has an integral sales component. If you’re looking to expand and hire more employees, combining sales and marketing into a single department might be a possibility to consider.

Perhaps you run your own home-based business. Maybe you have a telecommuting agreement with your employer. Whatever the case, an increasing number of people are making more and more use of their home offices these days. That also means that more and more people have more and more equipment in their home offices.

The trouble is that many of these people also assume that their home insurance will cover them if something were to happen to this home office equipment. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case and that’s why it is important to consider having appropriate home office insurance. You’d hate to lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of equipment through theft, fire, or natural disaster.

There are a few different ways that you can make sure you are covered. First, you can extend your typical homeowners or renters insurance to cover your home office equipment. This will raise your premium, but then you’ll know that you are covered. Alternatively, you can get a separate business insurance policy or even a specific home office insurance. Check with your insurance agent to see what options you have.